


Baggage

by micehell



Category: Velvet Goldmine
Genre: Angst, Drama, Established Relationship, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-10-15
Updated: 2006-10-15
Packaged: 2017-11-12 00:16:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,019
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/484509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/micehell/pseuds/micehell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moving always involves a lot of baggage.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Baggage

**Author's Note:**

> Strangely enough, this is sort of from my story [Ion](http://archiveofourown.org/works/471330), the part with the chair.

_Day 1_

Arthur carefully labels every one of his boxes, making sure everything in them is secure. Safe.

Curt throws his clothes into a garbage bag, declares that that's enough work for the day and drags Arthur out to _Joe's_ for greasy burgers and fries.

They play pinball afterwards, Arthur easily winning, though Curt claims that's because Arthur left some ketchup on the paddle buttons and his fingers slipped. But he's laughing as he says it, his hand in Arthur's pocket, cupping his ass.

That night, Curt drives Arthur back into the mattress, murmuring, "Last time," as they come.

_Day 2_

Curt's a packrat, and Arthur's starting to panic. They had to be moved out by tomorrow and Curt's done nothing but drag his feet all day. Arthur can almost believe he's trying to avoid moving altogether, but Curt's lease is up, and they've already signed on the new house, so he really doesn't have any choice.

Looking at the hordes of stuff - albums upon albums, cheap-looking travel souvenirs, matchbooks from all the clubs he'd ever played, bottle caps from the same, and, though Arthur can't begin to figure out why, a collection of kewpie dolls that was a horde of their own - that Curt still hasn't packed and won't throw away - even though Arthur offered every incentive he could think of, and it was kind of insulting that Curt would choose kewpie dolls over blow jobs - Arthur is beginning to wonder what his own choices are.

He thinks of the new house, pale wood floors, cream walls; soothing, peaceful, ordered. A refuge. He tries to imagine it with Curt's kewpie doll collection and sighs, wondering again.

As if he senses Arthur's doubts, Curt finally starts boxing his stuff up, only stopping long enough to push Arthur onto the couch, debris all around them, holding Arthur tightly as they push into each other's tight grip, before he gets up to finish packing.

That night they drop like the dead on their now bare mattress, sleeping until the dawn comes streaming in through curtainless windows

_Day 3_

The apartment looks dead as they leave it, the corpse of their lives together, and Arthur feels Curt's regret like his own, but he wants the new house, the new beginning. Clean and fresh, no reminders of the past in it.

He takes one last look at the walls - painted dark, with yellowed cellophane like scars across it, reminders of posters long gone, of posters only newly down - and dreams again of blond wood, thin-slatted blinds, muted colors and stainless steel, butcher block and chrome. Of elegance and sense and all the peace that he can buy.

The oasis of the dream doesn't match the house they unpack in, Curt's kewpie dolls cluttering up the spare lines of the new bookcase that Arthur bought. Arthur feels the frustration boiling in him, and he wants to scream at Curt to stop trashing up the place.

He only realizes he's said it aloud when Curt laughs, says, "Well, you can take the trash out of the trailer park, but…"

Arthur tries to apologize several times, but Curt's face just closes off, looking angry and strangely vindicated, and Arthur's too tired to try again. Too disappointed.

That night, they pretend to sleep in their new house, their backs to each other.

_Now_

Arthur had finally slept, but he wakes to a crash. He stumbles down unfamiliar stairs, bumping his shin on one of the boxes scattered about, finally making it into his new living room. The floors are still clean wood underneath the clutter, the walls still cream, and the starkness that Arthur has dreamed about is coming closer as Curt throws handfuls of bottle caps away with another tinny bang.

"Curt?"

He smiles at Arthur as he turns, after throwing another handful away, but it doesn't touch his eyes. "You were right. I've held onto this stuff too long. It was just…"

His voice trails off, Curt staring at the kewpie doll he now holds over the almost full trash can, like a sacrifice over a volcano. Arthur wonders if he'll say any more, because even though Curt's kept pieces of his past always to hand, he won't talk about it much.

But even as his hands grip the doll with white knuckles, its face puffing up at the pressure, Curt continues. "I got this when I was 17. I'd just played my first paying gig, so I had money in my pocket, a place to stay for the night. I don't remember who suggested going to the fair, but we were all pretty high, so it sounded like a good idea. I also don't really remember the guy who won this for me, just vague memories of blowing him behind the booth to thank him, but I still had it when I woke up the next day. I almost threw it away, but then I realized something."

He pauses, looking at Arthur as if trying to make him understand by the force of his stare. "I realized that I didn't have to throw it away. That I could keep it. That I was living someplace that actually had doors that locked, that I wouldn't be thrown out of if someone caught me there. That I could have things and not have to sell them to get my next fix."

Curt laughs then, sounding both amused and bitter. "Not that I didn't still do that, at times. But I don't know… it was like after that one morning, I couldn't give it up."

Arthur looks in the trash at the life that Curt's thrown away. He feels like he's been slapped, tears stinging his eyes as he has his own realization. He sees now that he hasn't been trying to live with Curt, but rather to fit Curt into his life, into the life that he's imagined. To make Curt a match to the reinvented Arthur, not the one that Curt first met, but the one who's toed the line. Who's clean cut, repressed, a little clone in Reynold's America, buying into that life, buying all the trappings that go with it.

Fuck, I'm a yuppie, is the first thought that makes it through Arthur's revelation. He sees the strange mix of snow globes, dolls and bottle caps that crowd together in the trash, the concrete sign of Curt clinging to memories of the past because they were _his_ , thinking of his own attempts to erase his past, to remake it altogether. They make quite a pair.

He watches Curt throw away another doll, another sacrifice, and feels sick. If he'd truly wanted someone who was just like him, he should have stuck with his right hand. Stuck with curling over pictures of Curt, perfect as only distance can make someone, and he should have ignored the dreams that had plagued him of what might have been.

Arthur stops Curt before he can throw away the Black Flag poster. Rollins had written a note on it, a mess of ink and torn paper from the force of his writing, from having used Curt's back as his table, the almost unreadable message a private joke between them that Curt had just smirked about when Arthur asked, and had never explained. Arthur doesn't need explanations now.

"Might look good in the study," is all he says, but he rescues the kewpie dolls, too, setting the pack of them back on the too bare shelves of the bookcase.

Curt smiles at Arthur like he's a mixture of Santa Claus and Ed McMahon come knocking on their door. He hesitates for a moment, but then folds the poster up, putting it aside before he leans in to kiss Arthur, deep and slow. When he pulls back he's still smiling, and he grabs another container of bottle caps and throws them in the trash.

Arthur starts to reach in and pull them out, thinking Curt hasn't understood him, but Curt holds his hand, shaking his head. "Some things really aren't worth remembering."

That night they're still unpacking. Even with the weeding out Curt did, the two of them have more stuff than should be humanly possible. It hasn't helped any that the furniture seems to be in a conspiracy against them, especially the chair that they're trying to push through the doorway into their room. They've measured several times, and it should go through, but they've both been reduced to the words, "Maybe if we turn it this way," and, "Fuck!" and Arthur is sure the chair is laughing at them.

With a screech it finally falls into the bedroom, leaving a scrape along the side of the doorframe, and they stumble, the foot of the chair dropping on Curt's, leaving a scrape there as well.

Arthur pushes Curt into their hard-won seat, kneeling in front of, looking over the scrape, smiling when Curt's foot curls in as Arthur's fingers inadvertently tickle, but there's no real damage. Mostly the foot's just dirty, because even though they've been carrying things in and out of the house all day, Curt's aversion to wearing shoes when at home had still won out.

Arthur's tired, and he's had enough, even though there're still an army of half-unpacked boxes marching in chaotic progression against the clean bare floors and walls. He says, "I hope you like this place, because I am _never_ moving again."

Curt isn't looking at the house, at the mess around them, isn't looking at anything but Arthur when he says, "I won't ever leave again."

And even though he's tired, and especially because they went to bed angry last night, Arthur pulls Curt to the edge of the chair, their fingers mapping whatever flesh they can find, moving over sweat-slick skin, leaving faint, damp traces of the dust they've carried from their old lives on pale skin and pink nipples and red cocks that strain towards each other.

Curt stands, kicking his pants completely off, pulling Arthur's off in a hard shrug, tossing them into the massed army of boxes like a prisoner of war. He pulls Arthur's hand around to his ass, and Arthur shudders, a finger already pressing down along the crease, circling, and he wants everything in that moment, needs it so much it hurts.

There's a brief, frantic search for lube, boxes being upended without care, adding to the mess, but then they're back in their room, leaning against the doorframe, the scrape from the chair rough on Arthur's back, Curt's ass smooth around his fingers as he presses two of them in. Olive oil is easing the way - the first thing they'd come across that would work - and Curt is still laughing, mouthing, "Extra virgin," against his neck even as Arthur pushes his thumb in, too.

Curt is open to his hand, open to him. To being pushed over the side of the chair, legs spread wide as Arthur stands between them. Open to being breached in one deep slide, his hips being pressed into one arm of the chair, his hands pressed hard into the other. He's open to easy and slow, to fast and hard, thrusts that seem to swallow Arthur whole, until he thinks that he could get lost inside of Curt, in his chaos and heat.

Curt comes with a strangled sound, a scream caught behind a bitten lip, and his helplessly jerking hips christen their new chair as Arthur christens Curt, shuddering over his back, holding him as close as he can to the chair, to him.

Arthur wants to stay in the moment, to hold it as long as he can, but Curt is Curt, uncomfortable with being smushed against the chair, uncomfortable with letting moments be, and he pushes Arthur back.

Pushes Arthur back into the chair, sitting on his lap, sweat and semen smearing between them, the shared results of all their hard work.

Arthur looks around the room. He'd dreamed of order, of making sense of his life. But he's happy to accept its loss, holding the death of that dream, the culmination of others, close.

/story


End file.
